Friday, April 18, 2008

Logo #227: Ministry

This riff on the anarchy symbol was designed for the most recent version of Ministry by the unholy troika of Jello Biafra, Al Jourgensen, and Lawton Outlaw in 2004. From my review of the Ministry live action at the House of Blues in Los Angeles on April 6 on their final tour before dissolution (so to speak), forthcoming in issue #50 of Signal to Noise, on newsstands near you: "This is another one for our idiot President!" Jourgensen cries. "It's called "No "W"!" He hangs from the chain-link, his voice become a long and plaintive shriek, the kind reserved only for those who fall from great heights. They're one of the most rhythmically gifted groups in all of pop music, even if they did admit to stealing ZZ Top's beats here and there, and myopia notwithstanding, it's extortionately difficult to believe that Al Jourgensen would give all this up. Rumor has it that he plans another Lard album, and possibly more RevoltingCocks albums. The disorientation that the lights bring is such that if one closes one's eyes, a whole other kind of dreaming happens. And yet one of the problems with this kind of rapid-fire depiction of disaster and calamity, playing out across the screen behind them as it does, is that it presents the impression that this is a constant, linear world of misfortune, all the time and at once everywhere. In reality, like the joke by Steven Wright about the place that's open 24 hours, these things do happen – just not in a row. There is an inherent loneliness to catastrophe that is difficult and undesirable to grasp. A tree falls in the forest. There's no one to hear it. That's rather the point, actually. " Conversely, "Die hard with a heart made of stone / you'll never see me 'cos I'm always alone" is one of the most brilliant stanzas ever written.